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Denver's new Catholic archbishop has longtime ties to area

Longmont pastor hopes Aquila visits city in the fall

By Electa DraperFor the Times-Call

Posted:
05/29/2012 10:02:58 PM MDT

Updated:
05/29/2012 10:13:32 PM MDT

DENVER -- Denver's Archbishop-designate Samuel J. Aquila, bishop of the 90,000-member Fargo Diocese in North Dakota, said Denver is seen by American Catholics as a vibrant, evangelical faith community, in large part, he said, because of the tremendous work of its former shepherd, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

It's clear from his brief introductory comments at a Tuesday morning press conference at the Denver Archdiocese that Aquila will be singing from the same orthodox hymnbook as his "friends, brothers and mentors," Chaput, now in Philadelphia, and Cardinal James Francis Stafford.

For Aquila, the fifth archbishop of the 550,000-member Denver Archdiocese, Tuesday was a homecoming that was, he said, "a very happy occasion" and "overwhelming."

A greeter kisses the ring of Bishop Samuel J. Aquila on Tuesday after a news conference in Denver, where he was introduced as the Archbishop of Denver. The 61-year-old Aquila, currently bishop of Fargo, N.D., studied at St. Thomas Seminary in Denver and worked in several Colorado parishes after his ordination in 1976.
(
Ed Andrieski
)

He was gardening at his home in Fargo about a week ago, he said, when he received a surprising call from the pope's U.S. representative, nuncio Archbishop Carlo Vigano. He had been called back to Denver.

"It meant returning to the place I had called home for most of my life," Aquila said. "I never imagined I would return one day as archbishop."

Vigano made the official announcement of Aquila's appointment at 4 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, or noon in Rome.

Although the 61-year-old Aquila is a native of Burbank, Calif., he was ordained a priest in Denver in 1976 and served in local parish ministry for 11 years.

Aquila then held several positions in the Denver Archdiocese in education and liturgy, until 1999, when he became the founding rector of St. John Vianney Seminary.

Aquila became bishop of the Fargo Diocese on March 18, 2002, upon Bishop James Sullivan's retirement. Aquila also provided oversight of the Diocese of Sioux Falls in 2005 until the consecration of a new bishop there.

"I fell in love with the beauty of the Dakota Plains and the thousands of wonderful people there," he said. Yet the assignment initially had tested him and taught him obedience, he said, because nothing is more unsettling than leaving everything he had known and loved in Denver for so long.

Aquila told the crowd packed into the Cardinal Stafford Library in the John Paul II Pastoral Center that he will not shrink from bringing Catholic values to bear on U.S. policy and politics.

"I have a primary concern with the secularism of the day," he said. "As Catholics and Christians, while we are respectful (of other perspectives), we must keep the place of God in the public square."

Aquila said he feels a strong affinity for Denver's large Hispanic community, with which he and his Italian family and community share a tradition of "strong family life and deep devotion."

"I have always had a deep love for the Hispanic community," he said.

He pledged to work on his Spanish, which has grown rusty. "Something I have to work on es mi Español," he said.

The Rev. Frank Maroney of Longmont's St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church attended Tuesday's press conference and stayed for the evening Mass in the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Maroney said he's "elated, overjoyed" at the Aquila's appointment.

"I think he's a great selection for us and a great gift for us. ... He's a very good person, gentle, but strong in his faith, and firm in his faith, too," Maroney said.

Maroney said he invited the archbishop to St. Francis' dedication of its new church on Oct. 4 and anticipated that would be the earliest the archbishop would visit Longmont.

Since 2007, the church's parish has been worshiping in a rented office space at 2410 Trade Centre Ave. while fundraising and constructing its new space. The new 18,000-square-foot church is on 14 acres on the southwest corner of Airport and Pike roads.

Aquila has been no stranger to controversy. He was one of the harshest critics of University of Notre Dame after its president, Rev. John Jenkins, invited President Barack Obama to give the 2009 commencement address.

"Even though President Obama is not Catholic, he clearly rejects the truth about human dignity through his constant support of a so-called 'right to abortion.' He also tolerates the inexcusable act of letting aborted children die who are born alive. He promotes an intrinsic evil which must always be resisted by a just and civil society," Aquila wrote to Jenkins. "Your actions and that of the Board of Trustees of Notre Dame do real harm to the mission of Catholic education in this country and further splinters Catholic witness in the public square."

In agreeing with Chaput that the proper role of government in solving the national health care crisis is not necessarily "a national public plan," such as Obama's, Aquila spoke of the danger of thinking "the national government is sole instrument of the common good."

Aquila has long evidenced his strong ties to Colorado. He choice for his coat of arms included three gold hills, emblematic of Colorado's Rocky Mountains, beneath an eagle, symbolic of St. John, patron of the Denver seminary.

The eagle also references his family heritage -- "aquila" is the Italian word for eagle.

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